Last resource disaster routing in a telecommunications network

ABSTRACT

Aspects of the present disclosure involve systems, methods, computer program products, and the like, for providing disaster routing of particular communications through a telecommunications network during a network outage. The disaster routing may ensure that communications from a particular source or to a particular destination are connected to the destination even during times when portions of the network may be inoperable. In one particular embodiment, the disaster routing may be performed for emergency communications received at the network and connected to one or more emergency services configured to receive the emergency communication. However, the disaster routing mechanisms and techniques described herein may be applied or available to any type of communication from any source or customer to the telecommunications network.

Cross-Reference To Related Applications

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/943,419, filed Apr. 2, 2018, now U.S. Pat. No. 10,362,631, whichclaims the benefit of and priority to U.S. Provisional PatentApplication No. 62/480,880, filed Apr. 3, 2017, the entire contents ofeach of which are incorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

Aspects of the present disclosure generally relate to systems andmethods for implementing a telecommunications network, and morespecifically for providing last resource disaster redundancy forcommunications from a particular source or for a particular destination.

BACKGROUND

Telecommunication networks provide for the transmission of informationacross some distance through terrestrial, wireless and/or satellitecommunication networks. Such communications may involve voice, data ormultimedia information, among others. In some instances, however, one ormore of the components of the telecommunications network may malfunctionor otherwise become inoperable such that transmission of communicationsthrough the network is negatively impacted. Such outages may occur forany number of reasons, including but not limited to power loss at thenetworking components, improper routing signaling within the network,and incorrect provisioning of the network devices. Operators oradministrators of such telecommunications networks thus often providemechanisms or procedures within the network to respond to networkoutages, referred to herein as disaster recovery procedures ormechanisms.

One common type of disaster recovery mechanism within telecommunicationsnetworks is to provide redundant components or paths through the networksuch that, if a preferred transmission path through the network isaffected by the network outage, traffic can still be transmitted throughthe network on the redundant path. However, some large network outagesmay affect both the primary transmission path and the redundanttransmission path through the network. In these circumstances, thetransmission of the data packets through the affected transmission pathis ceased until the network outage is rectified. For particularlyimportant communications, such as communications to access emergencyservices, it may be desirable to have a last resort disaster recoveryprocedure in place for large scale network outages to ensure that suchcommunications are connected to the intended destination device. It iswith these issues in mind, among others, that various aspects of thepresent disclosure were developed.

SUMMARY

One implementation of the present disclosure may take the form of amethod for operating a telecommunications network. The method mayinclude the operations of receiving a communication at an edge device ofa first telecommunications network identifying the communication as aparticular type of network communication associated with a disasterrecovery service, and determining a failed route path through the firsttelecommunications network for the received communication. In responseto the failed route path, the method may further include transmittingthe communication to a disaster recovery network device in response tothe failed route path determination and the particular type of networkcommunication identification, the disaster recovery network deviceautomatically transmitting the communication to a secondtelecommunications network different from the first telecommunicationsnetwork.

Another implementation of the present disclosure may take the form of anetworking device. The network device may include at least onecommunication port receiving a communication intended for a destinationdevice in communication with a first telecommunications network, aprocessing device, and a computer-readable medium connected to theprocessing device configured to store information and instructions thatare executed by the processing device. When executed, the operations ofobtaining a destination device identifier associated with thedestination device from the received communication, identifying thecommunication as a particular type of network communication associatedwith a disaster recovery service, and requesting routing informationfrom at least one routing device for the communication based on thedestination device identifier are performed. Additional operations mayinclude determining a failed route path through the firsttelecommunications network for the destination device based on therequest of routing information from the at least one routing device andtransmitting the communication to a disaster recovery network device inresponse to the determined failed route path and the particular type ofnetwork communication identification, the disaster recovery networkdevice automatically transmitting the communication to a secondtelecommunications network different from the first telecommunicationsnetwork.

Yet another implementation of the present disclosure may take the formof a telecommunications network. The network may include an ingress edgedevice receiving a communication from an ingress network to a firsttelecommunications network, obtaining a destination device identifierassociated with the destination device from the received communication,and identifying the communication as a particular type of networkcommunication associated with a disaster recovery service and a routingdevice receiving a request for routing information from the ingress edgedevice based on the destination device identifier and transmitting afailed route path indicator for the destination device identifier to theingress edge device. The network may also include a disaster recoverynetwork device receiving the communication from the ingress edge deviceand automatically transmitting the communication to a secondtelecommunications network different from the first telecommunicationsnetwork.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 schematic diagram illustrating an exemplary Internet Protocol(IP) operating environment in accordance with one embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a first schematic network diagram illustrating a redundantarchitecture within the network for disaster recovery during a networkoutage.

FIG. 3 is a second schematic network diagram illustrating a lastresource disaster recovery architecture for use during a network outage.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a method for routing a communication from aparticular source or to a particular destination during a network outageutilizing a last resource disaster recovery architecture.

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating an example of a computing system whichmay be used in implementing embodiments of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Aspects of the present disclosure involve systems, methods, computerprogram products, and the like, for providing disaster routing ofparticular communications through a telecommunications network during anetwork outage. The disaster routing may ensure that communications froma particular source or to a particular destination are connected to thedestination even during times when portions of the network may beinoperable. In one particular embodiment, the disaster routing may beperformed for emergency communications received at the network andconnected to one or more emergency services configured to receive theemergency communication. However, the disaster routing mechanisms andtechniques described herein may be applied or available to any type ofcommunication from any source or customer to the telecommunicationsnetwork.

In general, a networking device at an ingress edge of thetelecommunications network is configured to route the receivedcommunication, typically involving data packets, through thetelecommunications network to a destination device, either a devicewithin the network or to an egress device of the network that connectsto another telecommunications network. This routing is often based onrouting information (such as an identification of a destination deviceor network) included in the communication packet or packets. In someinstances, however, the ingress edge device may not be able to transmitthe communication through the telecommunications network due to anoutage or other inoperable state of one or more components of thenetwork. In this circumstance, the ingress edge device may be configuredto identify the occurrence of an outage and route the receivedcommunication to a dedicated last resource disaster routing component.The dedicated last resource routing component may automatically routethe received communication to a secondary (or third party)telecommunications network for connection to the destination. In otherwords, the edge device may recognize a potential network outage andoffload certain communications to a potentially unaffected network toensure that the communication is provided to the destination device. Inone particular embodiment, the communication may be an emergencycommunication (such as a 911 telephone call) intended to requestemergency services. In other embodiments, the communication may be froma particular customer of the telecommunications network that hascontracted with a network administrator to ensure communications reachthe intended destination device, even during times of a network outage.In this manner, communications designated by the network as importantmay be routed to the intended destination if one or more of thetransmission paths through the network are inoperable due to a networkoutage.

Beginning in FIG. 1, an exemplary operating environment 100 that mayutilize a last resource disaster routing mechanism is described. Ingeneral, the environment 100 provides for establishing communicationsessions between network users and for providing one or more networkservices to network users. For example, users to the network 100 maycommunicate with each other through communication devices, includingvoice communications and video communications. With specific referenceto FIG. 1, the environment 100 includes an IP network 102, which may beprovided by a wholesale network service provider. However, while theenvironment 100 of FIG. 1 shows a configuration using the IP network102; it should be appreciated that portions of the network may includenon IP-based routing. For example, network 102 may include devicesutilizing time division multiplexing (TDM) or plain old telephoneservice (POTS) switching. In general, the network 102 of FIG. 1 mayinclude any communication network devices known or hereafter developed.

The IP network 102 includes numerous components such as, but not limitedto gateways, routers, switches, and registrars, which enablecommunication and/or provides services across the IP network 102, butare not shown or described in detail here because those skilled in theart will readily understand these components. In some instances, thosecommunications may be exchanged across the network 102 over longdistances. More relevant to this description is the interaction andcommunication between the IP network 102 and other entities, such as theone or more customer home or business local area networks (LANs) 106,where a user of the network will connect with the network.

Customer network 106 can include communication devices such as, but notlimited to, a personal computer or a telephone 110 connected to arouter/firewall 114. Although shown in FIG. 1 as computer 110, thecommunication devices may include any type of communication device thatreceives a multimedia signal, such as an audio, video or web-basedsignal, and presents that signal for use by a user of the communicationdevice. The communication and networking components of the customernetwork 106 enable a user at the customer network 106 to communicate viathe IP network 102 to other communication devices, such as anothercustomer network 126 and/or the Internet 142. Components of the customernetwork 106 are typically home- or business-based, but they can berelocated and may be designed for easy portability. For example, thecommunication device 110 may be wireless (e.g., cellular) telephone,smart phone, tablet or portable laptop computer. In some embodiments,multiple communication devices in diverse locations that are owned oroperated by a particular entity or customer may be connected through theIP network 102.

The customer network 106 typically connects to the IP network 102 via aborder network 122, such as one provided by an Internet Service Provider(ISP). The border network 122 is generally provided and maintained by abusiness or organization such as a local telephone company or cablecompany. The border network 122 may providenetwork/communication-related services to their customers. In addition,the communication device 120 accesses, and is accessed by, the IPnetwork 102 via a public switched telephone network (PSTN) 126 operatedby a local exchange carrier (LEC). Communication via any of the networkscan be wired, wireless, or any combination thereof. Additionally, theborder network 122 and PSTN 126 may communicate, in some embodiments,with the IP Network 102 through a network edge device, such as sessionborder controller (SBC) 130, 132 or media gateway 133. In general, anynetwork edge device, including media gateways, may also be utilizedwithin the network 102. For ease of discussion, only three communicationdevices 110, 115, 120 are shown communicating with the IP network 102;however, numerous such devices, and other devices, may be connected withthe network, which is equipped to handle enormous numbers ofsimultaneous calls and/or other IP-based communications.

In many IP networks 102, communications through the network are routedbased on a Session Initiation Protocol Uniform Resource Identifier (SIPURI) protocol. For example, a user to the network 102 may utilize acommunications device (such as a telephone) to dial a telephone number(TN) for the destination communication device. The user's device orother component within the network environment 100 converts the TN intoa SIP URI associated with the destination communication device. The SIPURI is then utilized by the network 102 to route the communicationthrough the network to the destination device associated with the dialedTN utilizing IP or non-IP based signaling. One type of non-IP basedsignaling is an SS7 signaling protocol, although any type of signalingprotocol may be utilized to route the communication through the network.

Long distance communications may be transmitted across the IP network102 between two communication devices. For example, a user to thenetwork 102 may utilize a communications device (such as telephone 120)to dial a telephone number for a destination communication device,perhaps one reachable through border network 142. The communication istransmitted through the PTSN 126 network to the SBC 130. The SBC 130, inturn, provides routing information included in the communication to arouting device 140 included in the network 102. The routing device 140utilizes the routing information to determine an egress network 142 fromthe IP network 102 and provides terminating information to the SBC 130.The SBC 130 then routes the communication through the network 102 to anegress gateway (such as media gateway 133) associated with the egressnetwork 142. The media gateway 133 provides the communication to theborder egress network 142 for termination at the destination deviceconnected to or otherwise associated with the egress network. In thismanner, communications may be transmitted through the network 102 froman originating device to a terminating device.

FIG. 2 illustrates a first schematic network diagram 200 illustrating aredundant architecture within the network for disaster recovery during anetwork outage. The components of the system 200 of FIG. 2 are the sameor similar to those components described above with reference to FIG. 1.Thus, a customer 222 is connected to a telecommunications network 200for transmitting and receiving communications with the network. Thecustomer 222 may be a border network, PSTN, a LAN, a communicationdevice (such as a telephone, cell phone, or computer), and the like asdescribed above.

As also mentioned above, the customer network 222 connects to thetelecommunications network 202 through one or more ingress edge devices,such as SBC 202 and SBC 206. Each SBC 202-206 may be connected orotherwise in communication with one or more routing devices 240 and oneor more egress edge devices, such as media gateway 233. Each mediagateway 233 may connect to or otherwise be in communication with adestination or egress network 242, through which a receivedcommunication may be connected to a destination communication device(not shown), such as a user's telephone. As should be appreciated,communications may also traverse the network 200 in the oppositedirection from the egress network 242, through the network to theoriginating customer 222, for the exchange of communication data packetsbetween communication devices.

A typical call flow for communications through the network is asfollows. A user to the network 200 utilizes an originationcommunications device (such as a telephone) to dial a telephone numberfor a destination communication device reachable through egress network242. The communication is transmitted through the ingress customernetwork 222 to at least one SBC 206 of the network 200. As describedabove, the SBC 206 provides routing information included in thecommunication to routing device 240 and the routing device utilizes arouting information table to determine an egress network 242 based onthe dialed telephone number. The routing device 240 provides routinginformation to the SBC 206 to the egress edge device (media gateway 233)associated with the destination device. The SBC 206 then routes thecommunication through the network 200 to media gateway 233 associatedwith the egress network 242. The media gateway 233 provides thecommunication to the egress network 242 for termination at thedestination device. In some embodiments, the operations of the mediagateway 233 and redundant media gateway 210 may be performed by asession border controller device.

In some instances, however, one or more of the components of the network200 may fail or enter a failure state due to any number of reasons suchthat the network component cannot process communications. For exampleSBC 206 may experience a failure, such as a loss of power at a sitehosting the SBC or due to an improper provisioning of the device withinthe network. In such circumstances, the SBC 206 cannot receive thecommunication from the customer network 222 and process thecommunication according to the identified destination device. Thus, thecommunication packet is often dropped by the network such thatcommunications between the sending device and the destination devicedoes not occur.

To address the failure of a network device, the customer network 222 maybe instructed to provide incoming communications to a secondary orbackup edge device, such as SBC 202 of the network 200. Other failedcomponents within the network (perhaps caused by a power failure at asite hosting many network devices) may cause the communication to betransmitted to even further redundant components. For example, routingdevice 240 may be in a failure state such that routing information for areceived component is not available from the routing device. In suchinstances, the SBC 202 may request routing information from a secondaryor redundant routing device 208 to receive destination routinginformation. A redundant media gateway 210 may also be present in thenetwork 200 for redundant access to the egress network 242. In thismanner, the network 200 may include any number of redundant devices,components, or transmission paths to address a failure at one or morecomponents of the network.

Despite the redundancy of the telecommunications network 200, droppedcommunications through the network may still occur during widespreadnetwork outages. For example, both routing device 240 and redundantrouting device 206 of the network 200 may be in a failure state at thesame time. While other redundant paths or components of the network 200may exist, it is still possible that widespread outages in the network200 affecting many network devices at once may operate to preventcertain communications from any transmission path through the network,resulting in the packet being dropped or lost. In another example, eachrouting device 240, 208 of the network 200 may be mistakenly configuredto prevent certain communications from transmitting through the network,such as communications mistakenly identified as part of an attack on thenetwork. Thus, although some communications may be legitimate packets,the network may mistakenly identify those communications as illegitimateand drop those packets from transmission through the network 202.

To address large-scale outages in a network 200, a last resourcedisaster recovery mechanism or network structure may be implementedwithin the network 200 to ensure transmission of communications throughthe network, even during moments of widespread outages throughout thenetwork. In particular, FIG. 3 is a second schematic network diagram 300illustrating a last resource disaster recovery architecture within atelecommunications network for use during a network outage. The network300 of FIG. 3 includes many of the same components as that describedabove with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. For example, the network 300 mayinclude a customer network 322, SBC edge devices 302-306, routingdevices 340, 308, edge devices 333, 310, and egress network 342. Thesecomponents are interconnected so that each component may communicatewith another component through the network. Call flow or otheroperations of the network 300 may also be similar as described above toprovide redundancy in transmission of packets or communications throughthe network. Also similar, the operations of the media gateway 333 andredundant media gateway 310 may be performed by a session bordercontroller device. However, in this particular network architecture 300,a last resource disaster recovery mechanism is included for use duringcatastrophic or widespread outages in the network to ensure that certaincommunications are connected to a destination device.

As described above, a widespread network outage may result in therouting devices 340, 306 of the network becoming unavailable to providerouting instructions for received communications or may provideincorrect or improper routing instructions to requesting devices. Forexample, the routing devices 340, 308 may each become unreachable by theSBCs 302-206 of the network 300 due to an incorrect provisioning of thecomponents or power issues with the components. In such a circumstance,the routing devices 340, 308 may return no answer or an error messagewhen contacted by an SBC 302 for information on how to route a receivedcommunication. More particularly, during a typical call flow for acommunication, the SBC 302 receives a communication from the customernetwork 322 for termination at a destination device connected to egressnetwork 342. As explained above, the SBC 302 contacts a routing device340 to request routing information through the network 300 to reach theintended destination device. In some instances, however, the routingdevice 340 is unreachable (due to some type of failure condition) suchthat the routing device fails to provide routing information to therequesting SBC 302. In another example, the routing device 340 maydetermine that the received communication is a part of an attack on thenetwork or component of the network and may instruct the SBC 302 to notroute the communication to the destination device. Regardless of thereason for re-routing, the SBC 302 may attempt to contact a redundant orback-up routing device, such as routing device 308 to terminate thecommunication. However, in still other circumstances, redundant routingdevice 308 may also return a no answer or improper or no routing pathavailable through the network 300. This circumstance is referred toherein as a widespread outage in the network 300.

To address the widespread outage in the network 300, one or more of theedge devices of the network 300 (such as SBC 302) may be configured orprovisioned to route received communications to a dedicated lastresource disaster routing device 311 when one or more of the routingdevices 340, 308 provide a “no answer” or a “no route” reply due to awidespread outage in the network. In general, the last resource disasterrouting device 311 is an edge networking device or other type of routingnetwork component that is configured to receive a communication andautomatically route the communication as configured. In one particularexample, the last resource disaster routing device 311 is a disasterrecovery SBC device. However, the last resource disaster routing device311 may be any type of networking device, such as a media gateway, aswitch, or any other type of network device. Further, the disasterrecovery SBC 311 may be connected or otherwise in communication with athird party telecommunications network 314 that utilizes networkingcomponents that are different than those components utilized by theoriginally receiving network 300. In one implementation, the third partynetwork 314 is operated and maintained by an entity different then theadministrator or operator of the originally receiving network 300. Whilereferred to herein as a third party network, it may indeed be operatedby the same entity as the receiving network 300. Because the third partytelecommunications network 314 utilizes different network components,the outage affecting the network 300 may not similarly affect the thirdparty network such that a communication packet transmitted to the thirdparty network may reach the destination device.

In general, the third party network 314 may receive the communicationfrom the disaster recovery SBC 311 and connect the communication to thedestination device as a typical network call flow. That is, the thirdparty network 314 may also connect to or otherwise be in communicationwith the egress network 342 and may provide the communication to theegress network for connection to the intended destination device. Inthis manner, a received communication may still be terminated with theintended destination device during widespread network outages of atelecommunications network 300.

As mentioned, the disaster recovery SBC 311 is configured or provisionedto automatically transmit received communications to the third partynetwork 314. In other words, the disaster recovery SBC 311 does notrequest transmitting information from a routing device 340, 308 of thenetwork 300. Rather, as the routing devices 340, 308 have beendetermined by the network 300 to be affected by the network outage, thedisaster recovery SBC 311 transmits any received communication directlyto the third party network 314 for further routing to the egress network342. The SBC 311 is thus programmable by a network administrator orother operator to route received communications to any third partynetwork 314 in communication with the disaster recovery SBC 311 asdetermined by the network administrator. It should be appreciated thatthe disaster recovery SBC 311 may be configured or programmed to routeall received communications to any network or network component, asdesired or designed by the network administrator. For example, a firstdisaster recovery SBC 311 may be programmed or configured toautomatically route communications to a first third-party network 314,while a back-up or redundant disaster recovery SBC 312 may be configuredto route communications to also route the communication to the firstthird-party network or configured to route the communication to a secondthird-party network (not shown). This embodiment may be utilized toensure connection of the received communication if the widespread outagealso affects the first third-party network 314. However, typicallyoutages are limited to a particular network or location such thatoutages do not often affect two separate telecommunication networks andthe communication may be transmitted to the egress network 342 throughthe third party network 314.

As mentioned, in some implementations a redundant disaster recovery SBC312 may also be included in the telecommunication network 300. Theredundant disaster recovery SBC 312 may also be in communication withthe SBCs 302-206 of the network 300 to receive communications during adetected network outage. The disaster recovery SBC 312 may be configuredto operate in the same manner as the main disaster recovery SBC 311.That is, the redundant disaster recovery SBC 312 may receive an incomingcommunication and automatically transmit the communication to the thirdparty network 314 for transmission and connection to the egress network342 and the intended destination device.

In some embodiments of the network 300, only certain types ofcommunications that are identified by the network 300 upon receipt mayutilize the disaster recovery SBC 310. For example, the network 300 maybe configured to provide the last resource disaster recovery foremergency communications, such as telephone calls to a 911 center orother emergency center. The receiving SBC 302 of the network 300 mayidentify the incoming communication as an emergency communication basedon routing information included with the communication and attempt toroute the communication through the network 300 as described above.However, if the routing devices 340, 308 of the network 300 provide norouting information, the SBC 302 may be configured to instead providethe emergency communication to the disaster recovery SBC 311 and thethird-party network 314 for routing to the destination emergency center.In other embodiments, communications intended for a particular customerof the network 300 (or originating from a particular customer of thenetwork) may be provided with the last resource disaster routingfeature. In other words, the last resource disaster routing describedherein may be a feature that an administrator or operator of the network300 may offer or sell to customers of the network to provide additionalreliability to communications hosted by the network. In general, anyclassification or type of communication received at the network 300 maybe provided with the last resource disaster routing feature describedherein.

In general, the ingress edge device (or SBC 302) of the network 300 thatreceives the incoming communication may identify the type ofcommunication for last resource disaster recovery in any manner. In oneparticular embodiment, the types of communications that are eligible forrouting to the disaster recovery SBC 311 may be identified by the trunkgroup over which the communication is received. For example, all or aportion of emergency communications received at the network 300 may bereceived from a dedicated trunk group connection to the network. Thus,the SBCs 302-306 of the network 300 may be configured to route allcommunications received on the dedicated trunk group to the disasterrecovery SBC 311 when routing instructions from the routing devices 340,308 are not received. In other embodiments, the SBC 302 may perform someanalysis of the received communication to determine a destination ororigin of the communication. For example, the SBC 302 may extract adialed telephone number identifier from the communication and determinean intended destination for the communication. If the intendeddestination belongs to a customer of the network 300 that has purchasedthe last resource disaster routing service, the SBC 302 may perform therouting to the disaster recovery SBC 311 as described above when therouting devices 340, 308 do not return a proper route through thenetwork. Similarly, the SBC 302 may be configured to extract an origintelephone number identifier and route the communication to the disasterrecovery SBC 311 if the originating device is associated with theservice provided by the network 300. Regardless of the method utilized,the SBC 302 is configured to identify if a received communication shouldbe routed to the disaster recovery SBC 311 in the event of a widespreadoutage in the network 300 and route the communication accordingly.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a method 400 for routing a communication from asource device to a destination device through a telecommunicationsnetwork during a network outage utilizing a last resource disasterrecovery architecture. In general, the operations of the method 400 maybe performed by any component of or related to the network 300 of FIG.3. In one particular embodiment, one or more the operations areperformed by an ingress SBC 302 of the network while other operationsare performed by a disaster recovery SBC 311. Through the method 400, atelecommunications network 300 may provide last resource disasterrouting during periods of widespread outages within the network toensure that particular communications are routed to or terminated at adestination communication device.

Beginning in operation 402, the network 300 receives an incomingcommunication from a particular ingress network or customer 322. In someembodiments, the communication is received through a dedicated trunkgroup connected to or in communication with the network 300. Inoperation 404, the receiving edge device 302 contacts one or morerouting devices 340, 308 of the network 300 to determine a routing paththrough the network 300. However, during moments of outages within thenetwork 300 (or other instances, such as an incorrect provisioning ofthe components of the network), the routing devices may be offline ormay return a “no connect” instruction in operation 406. Such a “noconnect” instruction may include a no reply from the routing device, areply with no route through the network found, a reply instructing therequesting device to ignore the communication, and the like.

When a no connect instruction is received, the edge requesting device302 may determine, in operation 408, if the received communication iseligible for last resource disaster routing. For example, the edgedevice 302 may determine that the communication is received from adedicated trunk group, such as a trunk group dedicated to emergencycommunications. In another example, the edge device 302 may extract someinformation from the received communication (such as a dialeddestination telephone number identifier or an origination telephonenumber identifier) and determine if a customer associated with theextracted information has purchased the last resource disaster routingservice from the network 300. If the edge device determines that thecommunication is eligible for the last resource routing, the edge devicethan routes the communication to a dedicated disaster recovery edgedevice 311 in operation 410.

Upon receiving the communication from the edge device 302, the disasterrecovery edge device 311 is programmed or otherwise configured toautomatically route received communications to a third-partytelecommunications network 314 for further routing of the communication.Thus, in operation 412, the disaster recovery edge device 311automatically routes the received communication to a third-partytelecommunications network 314. In one embodiment, the disaster recoveryedge device 311 transmits all received communication to a particularedge device of the third-party network 314. In other embodiments, thedisaster recovery edge device 311 is connected to more than one ingressedge device of the third-party network 314 and may route thecommunication to any such edge device upon receipt. In this manner, thereceived communication is transmitted to the third-party network 314during a time when the routing devices 340, 308 of the network 300 maybe inoperable due to a network outage of some type.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating an example of a computing deviceor computer system 500 which may be used in implementing the embodimentsof the components of the network disclosed above. For example, thecomputing system 500 of FIG. 5 may be an edge device 302 of the network300 discussed above. The computer system (system) includes one or moreprocessors 502-506. Processors 502-506 may include one or more internallevels of cache (not shown) and a bus controller or bus interface unitto direct interaction with the processor bus 512. Processor bus 512,also known as the host bus or the front side bus, may be used to couplethe processors 502-506 with the system interface 514. System interface514 may be connected to the processor bus 512 to interface othercomponents of the system 500 with the processor bus 512. For example,system interface 514 may include a memory controller 514 for interfacinga main memory 516 with the processor bus 512. The main memory 516typically includes one or more memory cards and a control circuit (notshown). System interface 514 may also include an input/output (I/O)interface 520 to interface one or more I/O bridges or I/O devices withthe processor bus 512. One or more I/O controllers and/or I/O devicesmay be connected with the I/O bus 526, such as I/O controller 528 andI/O device 540, as illustrated.

I/O device 540 may also include an input device (not shown), such as analphanumeric input device, including alphanumeric and other keys forcommunicating information and/or command selections to the processors502-506. Another type of user input device includes cursor control, suchas a mouse, a trackball, or cursor direction keys for communicatingdirection information and command selections to the processors 502-506and for controlling cursor movement on the display device.

System 500 may include a dynamic storage device, referred to as mainmemory 516, or a random access memory (RAM) or other computer-readabledevices coupled to the processor bus 512 for storing information andinstructions to be executed by the processors 502-506. Main memory 516also may be used for storing temporary variables or other intermediateinformation during execution of instructions by the processors 502-506.System 500 may include a read only memory (ROM) and/or other staticstorage device coupled to the processor bus 512 for storing staticinformation and instructions for the processors 502-506. The system setforth in FIG. 5 is but one possible example of a computer system thatmay employ or be configured in accordance with aspects of the presentdisclosure.

According to one embodiment, the above techniques may be performed bycomputer system 500 in response to processor 504 executing one or moresequences of one or more instructions contained in main memory 516.These instructions may be read into main memory 516 from anothermachine-readable medium, such as a storage device. Execution of thesequences of instructions contained in main memory 516 may causeprocessors 502-506 to perform the process steps described herein. Inalternative embodiments, circuitry may be used in place of or incombination with the software instructions. Thus, embodiments of thepresent disclosure may include both hardware and software components.

A machine readable medium includes any mechanism for storing ortransmitting information in a form (e.g., software, processingapplication) readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). Such media maytake the form of, but is not limited to, non-volatile media and volatilemedia. Non-volatile media includes optical or magnetic disks. Volatilemedia includes dynamic memory, such as main memory 516. Common forms ofmachine-readable medium may include, but is not limited to, magneticstorage medium (e.g., floppy diskette); optical storage medium (e.g.,CD-ROM); magneto-optical storage medium; read only memory (ROM); randomaccess memory (RAM); erasable programmable memory (e.g., EPROM andEEPROM); flash memory; or other types of medium suitable for storingelectronic instructions.

Embodiments of the present disclosure include various steps, which aredescribed in this specification. The steps may be performed by hardwarecomponents or may be embodied in machine-executable instructions, whichmay be used to cause a general-purpose or special-purpose processorprogrammed with the instructions to perform the steps. Alternatively,the steps may be performed by a combination of hardware, software and/orfirmware.

Various modifications and additions can be made to the exemplaryembodiments discussed without departing from the scope of the presentinvention. For example, while the embodiments described above refer toparticular features, the scope of this invention also includesembodiments having different combinations of features and embodimentsthat do not include all of the described features. Accordingly, thescope of the present invention is intended to embrace all suchalternatives, modifications, and variations together with allequivalents thereof.

What is claimed:
 1. A method for operating a telecommunications networkcomprising: receiving, by one or more processors of a firsttelecommunications network, a communication; identifying, by the one ormore processors, the communication as a particular type of networkcommunication associated with a disaster recovery service; determining,by the one or more processors, a failed route path through the firsttelecommunications network for the received communication; associating,by the one or more processors, the disaster recovery service with aparticular customer of the first telecommunications network; andtransmitting, by the one or more processors, the communication to asecond telecommunications network different from the firsttelecommunications network in response to the failed route pathdetermination and the particular type of network communicationidentification.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the determining of thefailed route path through the first telecommunications network for thereceived communication comprises: transmitting, by the one or moreprocessors, a route request to at least one routing device of the firsttelecommunications network based on the received communication; andreceiving no response from the at least one routing device.
 3. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the determining of the failed route paththrough the first telecommunications network for the receivedcommunication comprises: transmitting, by the one or more processors, aroute request to at least one routing device of the firsttelecommunications network based on the received communication; andreceiving, by the one or more processors, a routing instruction from theat least one routing device of the first telecommunications network todrop the communication.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein thedetermining of the failed route path through the firsttelecommunications network for the received communication comprises:transmitting, by the one or more processors, a route request to at leastone routing device of the first telecommunications network based on thereceived communication; and receiving, by the one or more processors, anerror message from the at least one routing device of the firsttelecommunications network.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein theidentifying the communication as the particular type of networkcommunication is based on routing information included in the receivedcommunication.
 6. The method of claim 5, wherein the associating of thedisaster recovery service with the particular customer of the firsttelecommunications network is in response to the routing informationindicating that the communication is associated with the particularcustomer.
 7. The method of claim 6, wherein the routing informationincludes a telephone number of a destination device.
 8. The method ofclaim 6, wherein the routing information includes a telephone number ofan originating device.
 9. The method of claim 6, wherein thetransmitting of the communication to the second telecommunicationsnetwork is further in response to the associating of the disasterrecovery service with the particular customer of the firsttelecommunications network.
 10. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: configuring, by the one or more processors, a disasterrecovery network device to automatically transmit receivedcommunications to the second telecommunications network; andtransmitting, by the one or more processors, received communications tothe disaster recovery network device to transmit the receivedcommunications to the second telecommunications network.
 11. Atelecommunications system comprising: one or more processors of a firsttelecommunications network; and non-transient computer readable mediacomprising instructions that, when executed by the one or moreprocessors, cause the one or more processors to: receive acommunication; identify the communication as a particular type ofnetwork communication associated with a disaster recovery service;determine a failed route path through the first telecommunicationsnetwork for the received communication; associate the disaster recoveryservice with a particular customer of the first telecommunicationsnetwork; and transmit the communication to a second telecommunicationsnetwork different from the first telecommunications network in responseto the failed route path determination and the particular type ofnetwork communication identification.
 12. The system of claim 11,wherein to determine the failed route path through the firsttelecommunications network for the received communication, theinstructions further cause the one or more processors to: transmit aroute request to at least one routing device of the firsttelecommunications network based on the received communication; andreceive no response from the at least one routing device.
 13. The systemof claim 11, wherein to determine the failed route path through thefirst telecommunications network for the received communication, theinstructions further cause the one or more processors to: transmit aroute request to at least one routing device of the firsttelecommunications network based on the received communication; andreceive a routing instruction from the at least one routing device ofthe first telecommunications network to drop the communication.
 14. Thesystem of claim 11, wherein to determine the failed route path throughthe first telecommunications network for the received communication, theinstructions further cause the one or more processors to: transmit aroute request to at least one routing device of the firsttelecommunications network based on the received communication; andreceive an error message from the at least one routing device of thefirst telecommunications network.
 15. The system of claim 11, whereinthe identifying of the communication as the particular type of networkcommunication is based on routing information included in the receivedcommunication.
 16. The system of claim 15, wherein the associating ofthe disaster recovery service with the particular customer of the firsttelecommunications network is in response to the routing informationindicating that the communication is associated with the particularcustomer.
 17. The system of claim 16, wherein the routing informationincludes a telephone number of a destination device.
 18. The system ofclaim 16, wherein the routing information includes a telephone number ofan originating device.
 19. The system of claim 16, wherein thetransmitting of the communication to the second telecommunicationsnetwork is further in response to the associating of the disasterrecovery service with the particular customer of the firsttelecommunications network.
 20. The system of claim 11, wherein theinstructions further cause the one or more processors to: configure adisaster recovery network device to automatically transmit receivedcommunications to the second telecommunications network; and transmitreceived communications to the disaster recovery network device totransmit the received communications to the second telecommunicationsnetwork.